Where I can tell stories, relate experiences and pass along tips discovered while doing research on my family; through volunteer activities, including as an Online Parish Clerk; and from projects completed as a genealogical consultant.

Tuesday, 28 March 2017

Who the heck is in that old photo?

Every
once in a while we come across or are given an old photo of some distant
relatives. And we ask, “Who the heck is in that old photo?”

I
have such a picture from a cousin who brought it to a family reunion in 2005.
There are seven people shown in the rather formal picture. Unfortunately there
is no indication of who the photographer was or when and where it was taken.

Handwritten
notes on the back of the photo list some names and relationships, or guesses,
and an approximate year the picture was taken. But we don’t know who wrote the
information, when it was added or whether it was entirely accurate. Some of the
people were strangers to me so, being the curious genealogist that I am, I set
about searching for information about them. With so much data available on
various websites like Ancestry I
thought it might be fairly straightforward to track down the individuals and
their families.

Group photo in
question in this blog post

Whoever
had put the names to the people had also numbered them on the front for
reference. The approximate date of the photo was given as 1895 and the notes
read:

The
clothing generally fit the time period of the 1890s. I did have photos of Uncle
Charlie and his wife, Aunt Mary, in the back row. They were Charles Henry and
Mary Jane (Putnam) Thompson, Charles was a brother of my great-grandfather,
Newton Isaac Thompson. Charles was born in 1849 and Mary Jane in 1853 which
meant they were both in their 40s if the photo was taken around 1895. And Mary
Jane had a brother named Frank, born in 1858.

I
had been given copies of photos of Charles and Mary, one taken on their wedding
day in 1877 and one taken in their senior years about 1920, so I could compare
them with the people named in the old group photo.

The
images all seemed to me to be of the same people. That got me comfortable two
of the people could be reasonably identified.

With
respect to the name Putnam, I assumed Mary Jane and Mary Thede might be closely
related. A peek at Mary Jane’s branch of the family tree provided another possibility
– that Mary Jane and Alvira were sisters, daughters of Luman and Lavina
(Vanderwark) Putnam. Luman died in 1863 and Lavina remarried a man by the name
of Royal (or Robert) Randall. I found the family on various censuses. The five Putnam
children from Lavina’s first marriage – including Mary (Jane), Frank and Alvira
– were together on the 1870 Minnesota census. Alvira was born in 1860.

1870 Minnesota
census showing Randall/Putnam Family living in Douglas County

Mary
Jane, of course, married Charles Thompson in 1877. Coincidentally, Alvira
married a man named Hans Peter Thompson later that same year. What I found out
from the census records was that Charles and Peter were not related. Peter was
actually born in Denmark in 1849; Charles had been born in Upper Canada the
same year.

That
seemed to confirm two more people in the group photo. Alvira would have been
about 35 years of age and Peter 46. In the photo they look like that could be
right. Peter and Alvira moved to North Dakota, where all of their children were
born. Charles and Mary Jane and many of their relatives, including my
great-grandfather, were already in the territory. According to the 1900 US
census, Peter and Alvira had a daughter, Cecil May, in August of 1893. If the
girl in the photo looks about two years old, then it could well be Cecil May
Thompson.

So
we come to "Mary Theade, a cousin of Frank Putnam” and, obviously of Mary Jane as well.

I
did a search on Ancestry for Mary
Theade (sic), born about 1850, plus or minus 10 years. I also thought that she
might have been born in the Midwest, as were her cousins. A simple search
brought up a Mary E. Thede, born about 1860 in Iowa, but living in California
in 1920. Both Peter and Alvira had lived in California as well and, in fact
were buried there, so I thought they might have travelled together. Hey, it was
worth a shot even if there was no evidence of Mary being in the state. Further
review found several other censuses from 1880, 1900 and 1910, with a Mary
Thede, born in Iowa, and a husband named “Carson”. The 1880 summary showed them
living in Minnesota, a closer link to Alvira, Mary Jane and Frank Putnam.

Both
names popped up on a family tree on Ancestry
that showed Mary Elizabeth’s death in 1925 and a link to a Find A Grave index. And that summary had her husband, Carsten’s
death in 1913, information on five children and her maiden name – Vanderwark! Her
father was shown as Porter Easterbrook Vanderwark and mother as Harriet Adelia McPherson.

Find A Grave
entry for Mary Elizabeth (Vanderwark) Thede

This
could not be a coincidence. The mother of Alvira, Mary Jane and Frank was, of
course, Lavina Vanderwark. Porter could certainly have been Lavina’s brother,
leaving Mary Elizabeth Thede, Alvira Thompson, Mary Jane Thompson and Frank
Putnam as cousins, just as indicated on the photo. A search for Porter
Vanderwark (There could not have been two of them!) found a family on the 1855
New York state census, living in Chautauqu County, the same place where Luman
and Lavina (Vanderwark) Putnam were living, having just been married a few
years previously. Again, this could not be a coincidence.

All
evidence pointed to that fact that Mary Thede, Alvira Thompson and Mary Jane
Thompson were related through the Vanderwark line.

The
last individual on the photo was indicated to be Charles Thompson’s brother. It
was definitely not my great-grandfather, Newton Thompson. The only other
brother it could have been was John Thompson, born in 1857. As far as I am
aware, John never left Canada and it was unlikely he visited Charles and Newton
in North Dakota.

Left – Newton
Thompson apparently taken on his marriage day in 1884; right – individual on
the group photo labelled as possibly John Thompson

I do not have a picture
of John Thompson, brother to Charles and Newton, but I
suspected the man was not a Thompson at all. He was very possibly Carsten Thede,
the husband of Mary Thede. That would make more sense, having a photo of three
couples rather than two couples and two unrelated people.

I
looked for Carsten Thede on Ancestry and came up with a couple of family trees that
had photos of the family. Though the quality of the image is not quite as good
as my own photo, when compared, it seems hardly undeniable that the man was, in
fact Mr. Thede.

Left –
individual on the group photo; right – individual from a photo of the Carsten
Thede family, taken about 1893

I
can’t be sure where the photo was taken. In 1900, Charles and Mary were living
in Mapleton, North Dakota, Peter and Alvira were in Ransom, North Dakota and
Carsten and Mary were in Madera, California. Very likely they all got together
someplace in North Dakota for a family gathering where the picture was taken.
If the little girl is, indeed, Cecil May Thompson, then the photo was likely
taken in 1895 or 1896.

With
a little sleuthing and some good fortune in finding others researching these
families, I managed to identify – correctly I hope – who the heck the people
were in this old photo. None are in my direct ancestral line but some cousins
may be interested in the results.

What
I learned was that one should not take for granted what identities have been
given to people in old photos but check each of them out with whatever
resources may be available. Often those that attempt to record information are
working from someone else’s memory or merely guessing.

Wayne
Shepheard is a retired geologist and active genealogist. He volunteers with the
Online Parish
Clerk
program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of
articles about various aspects of genealogy in several family history society
journals. Wayne has also served as an editor of two such publications. He
provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

1 comment:

Good analysis! My problem is 100 times yours was, because I have over 100 of such photos, and have spent many years and lots of time doing what you did. To add to your thought processes, I try to estimate the age of the persons in the photos. Also, check from genealogy charts how many girls and boys and comparison of ages to figure out families. For example, A couple with 2 older girls and younger boy and a baby will fit usually one or maybe two families. It helps if even one is definitely identified then the others sometimes fall in place. I also compare general appearance, their ears, nose shapes, eye shape and space between their eyes. I have noticed that men usually keep their part throughout their lives, plus I pay attention to where the photo was taken, and it is very important to know who owned the photos before I received them. One person put a family of 14 photo on Ancestry.com with the name of her ancestor, which is the only one she knew. I knew the names of all 14, so posted them as note. Now we are full-fledged distant cousins working on this family's genealogy.

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Miller-Watson Family Ca 1886

The photo in the background of this website is of the Miller-Watson Family, taken in Manhattan, Kansas, USA, around 1886. My great-grandfather, Isaac Mayfield Miller, is in the back row, second from the right. My 2nd great-grandmother, Hannah Tunstal (Mayfield) Miller-Watson, is seated front-centre. The other individuals are all of Hannah's other children from both of her marriages.

About Me

Wayne has pursued family history research for a number of decades, on
his own behalf and for others. He volunteers as an Online Parish Clerk,
handling four parishes in Devon, England. Wayne has also been active with a number of family history societies and is the past editor of two family history society journals. He is also an author of several articles
published in a number of different genealogical journals and has made
presentations at genealogical conferences. Following a long and successful
career as a geologist in the oil & gas industry, Wayne now pursues
genealogy as a hobby and a second line of work through his business, Family
History Facilitated.

Wayne is a native Calgarian and a descendant of many immigrants to
southern Alberta who originated in England, Scotland, Germany, the United
States and possibly other areas not yet determined. He actively explores many
family branches spread across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and
Europe.